This, I Believe: MERCH

For several years now, I've been a big opponent of everyday people using the word "merch" to refer to merchandise. Unless you're actually in a rock band, or better yet an accountant, road manager, or someone intimately involved with the actual distribution and sale of the band's merchandise, you should not use that term.

I blame all those "do-it-yourself" emo bands for casually dropping the term when they were hyping, say, Warped Tour--you know, but in that faux-cool "we're aware that we're shilling ourselves, so that makes us hip" kind of way. By referring to their crappy t-shirts and bumper stickers and crying towels as "merch," they were trying to wink at us and let us know it was all right to buy their stuff because, hey, it's just the "biz," right?

NOT right. Usage of the term has spiraled out of control, according to my own unscientific observations, culminating in a sad spectacle I witnessed at Borders recently. One of their staff recommendations racks now had a sign that read, "BORDERS MERCH TEAM RECOMMENDS."
Borders MERCH team? What, the staff at Borders is too cool to be called, you know, "staff"? Are we supposed to feel like insiders because, ooh, the Merch Team let us in on these hot new picks? Wow, forget Borders Rewards. You don't even have to be a member to have access to the cutting-edge recommendations of the Merch Team!

It's ridiculous, and it's one more moment that makes me believe that free speech should have its limits. Let's leave the word "merch" to those select few in "the business," not as something to toss around to us rubes who are actually supposed to buy the product. "Merchandise" will suffice as far as we are concerned.

This, I believe.